


I Loved You First

by ThirdActLove



Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirdActLove/pseuds/ThirdActLove
Summary: John took him to the gardens at sunrise. They bundled up in quilts and drank coffee and sat on the stone walls, and John said, “Next week, eight years ago, you save my life at the National Opera House in Ukraine.”
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Comments: 128
Kudos: 708





	I Loved You First

**Author's Note:**

> Anything in present tense follows Neil’s path through the film, anything in parentheses is a memory from Neil’s future, and anything in italics is either a thought, a quote, or a combination of those (citations will be in the end notes).
> 
> In this story, The Protagonist is named through his pronouns. Therefore, anytime you see “He/His/Him” with capital letters, those are referring to The Protagonist. Whenever His future self is mentioned, He’s called “John,” because John David Washington’s name just fits Him perfectly.
> 
> The title comes from Regina Spektor’s song ‘Samson’--“I loved you first / Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth / I have to go, I have to go”
> 
> For a closer look at the art pieces from this story, visit https://ithappensoffstage.tumblr.com/post/629724072281079808/john-took-him-to-the-gardens-at-sunrise-they
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Enjoy!

Illustrations by Vati (@hcnnibal on tumblr)

At the beginning:

Neil’s three drinks in when he sees Him. Mumbai is sweltering hot, and Neil’s in a lighter suit--grey, white shirt, cotton--but Neil’s also sweating, and shaking, and clinging to stories that were always disguised as mission briefings. Neil knows more than he should know already. And Neil is wondering which will get him killed faster: that knowledge, the love racing through his charged veins, or the smile from the stranger in a wooden chair.

Neil catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. That reflection is a wreck, all nervous ticks and smiles that don’t quite reach the alcohol-glazed pupils. Dark circles under those blue eyes. Five o’clock shadow. Mussed blonde hair.

There’s none of that anxiety on Him. He walks into the Bombay Yacht Club fresh-faced and confident and new, and _young_ ; Neil's hands drift across the bar counter to find any grooves, just a little sharpness against skin to give those singed nerve endings something else to focus on.

He’s wearing a cheap suit and Neil wants to dive across the room into His arms because it’s been a week since they last spoke, and they’ve never even met, and Neil’s a little cocky and a little clever but not nearly enough to not want to die when He looks at Neil without recognition. Without a wedding ring.

And Neil’s not stupid. Neil left his gold band at home. With Him (John, though he wasn’t John yet, and wouldn’t be John for a long, long time). What’s happened, happened.

Neil exists in two places: here, and where He will be.

And there He is, then, waiting for His British contact. Neil knocks back half his vodka tonic and stands.

That’s not where their story begins, not really. That’s an incomplete version.

Neil’s not entirely sure where on the trajectory or the path or the timeline he’s finally come to, but Neil knows he’s incomplete without Him. Which goes both ways, but He doesn’t know it yet. Which is why He fights when Neil orders Him a Diet Coke, and Neil slips up and tells Him, _I love you,_ only it comes out, “No, you don’t.”

He doesn’t notice the familiarity because he’s a fucking Tenet fledgling, and isn’t that the funniest thing? Neil would spend some time being entertained if he wasn’t so enamored instead. Neil’s cool and collected, pretending at ignorance, selling lies with a smile, pushing in the right direction while they sit and strategize.

The mission at the Singh household is a success. Neil wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t the first time around. They fly off the side of the building, Neil suppressing all the joy of the jump, Neil knowing He hates every second in the air at this point in His life. Actually, He never grew to like bungee jumping, but that’s--that’s Neil’s to know and His to find out.

Colors and faces blur in the crowd. Red, blue, glittering jewel tones, plumes of thick white smoke. His hand touches the small of Neil’s back. Flat palm, soft pressure, recognition without a moment of eye contact. It’s how they find each other every time. Or how they will, later. Neil’s lungs almost give out because it’s the first time He’s done it, versus for Neil it’s another piece in a pattern, so repetitive it’s almost insignificant. Although nothing with Him ever is.

Neil knows they’re both professionals and only rookies get giddy after a job. Except, exceptions. They’ve made a non-bungee-jumpable-- _not a word_ \-- building into one. Up and down a fortress that takes no prisoners and they’ve emerged unscathed. There are successful missions, and there are miracles. The latter deserve celebration.

At home, that would be red wine and steak by candlelight. Here and now, it’s different. They sprint through city alleyways pretending they’re calm, and only when they return to the hotel does anything change.

Neil has booked himself the adjacent room because Neil knew before He knew what room He’d be in. And now they arrive together, key cards in hands. Neil looks over. Smirks. He considers Neil, opens his door, and exhales.

“Do you want a drink?”

Neil follows Him inside. It’s a blank room, generic sepia tones, floral comforter on a queen bed, still-lifes of exotic fruit in fake gilded-gold frames on the off-white walls. They’ll move somewhere different--better--tomorrow. Neil doesn’t mind the room for one night, though.

They’re half a drink in when Neil chuckles into dangerous territory. “You have to be lonely, being dead.”

And maybe He’s noticed the lingering glances or the heart in Neil’s throat, because He slants His gaze toward the bed and asks, “You married?”

“Ye--no,” Neil answers, then kind of chuckles off the question and plays with the tie John bought for him last year in Paris.

“Yes or no?” He snorts. “Or, y’know, not married when you’re abroad and all that modern shit?”

Neil presses dry lips together and flexes long, jewelry-free fingers. Married, not married. _To you,_ Neil wants to whisper, but of course he doesn’t.

“Well?” He’s already got his lips on Neil’s neck.

“It’s complicated,” Neil finally replies, amused by the private joke.

His body’s on fire, and it’s like his first inversion ever. Sensations of a new world: air made for suffocating, corrupted lungs, and hands that Neil could recognize blind, hands that touch Neil as if He’s never taken a full simply to stare and trace and memorize.

He says, “Too complicated to kill the lights?”

But Neil’s already hit the switch.

Neil makes a better lover only because he’s cheating--technically in every sense of the word. Neil knows every inch of Him, only getting surprised to find smooth skin where scars will soon be. Neil wonders what it will be like for John to carry these memories when he didn’t have them before. If John will resent Neil for them, because John’s always fancied himself the braver one for making the first move.

Fleetingly, Neil remembers a Shakespeare play he read at university--

_O time, thou must untangle this, not I. / It is too hard a knot for me to untie._

It’s useless speculating paradoxes or parallels. Neil loves Him **,** loves John, and it will all happen how it’s supposed to, since it already has and since Neil doesn’t leave it up to chance.

Of course, Mumbai isn’t even their first meeting. It’s just the one He knows about. Neil spends a yellow-tinged morning looking at a body Neil has woken up to countless times in a shared bed--and scattered times before on battlegrounds and--Neil laughs. Leaping ahead into the chaos. Ives would shake his head and mutter, “Cowboy shit.”

No, the Kiev Opera Siege. That’s the one. Neil hadn’t known exactly what would happen when he inverted himself for that mission.

(John took him to the gardens at sunrise. They bundled up in quilts and drank coffee and sat on the stone walls, and John said, “Next week, eight years ago, you save my life at the National Opera House in Ukraine.”

“June 14. Our anniversary.” Neil said it with reverence.

“Yes. It’s why I pushed so hard for the date.”

Neil leaned his head on John’s shoulder. “How romantic,” he mused. “Although, how do you know it was me?”

“It’s always you,” John answered. He put his arms around Neil. “I don’t want to ask you to go back for me. I.” He cleared his throat and blinked slowly at the horizon. “I wish I hadn’t told you.”

“I’ve already gone. So, I would have found out. You know I want to go, and I will.” Neil understood by the catch in John’s voice that there was something else to the story, some secret John couldn’t speak. Neil also called Ives first thing after they got back to the house to arrange the mission.

They were never supposed to take personal mementos, but Neil liked to bend the rules and had the freedom to, considering who he married. So, Neil took his standard-issue backpack, and Neil put a charm on it. John had gifted it to him on their second date, and it went everywhere with Neil.)

Maybe, Neil thinks later, wearing it now is what catches John's eye in the future. It's a fun game to play: cause and effect. It's especially fun to play it while he preps for Kiev, debating physics with himself to alleviate his anxiety.

Neil hadn’t known exactly when their reunion-slash-inception would happen during that gunfight. Neil shooting an antagonist, looking into His eyes, feeling like a knife was driving under unsuspecting, ill-prepared ribs. But Neil finishes the mission and gets the hell out of there, burning with rage and guilt knowing they’ll pick Him up to torture Him next.

That night, Neil calls Mahir. They go to a pub, sit in a dark corner, and order a few too many rounds.

Mahir tries to comfort his friend. “It’s okay. The pain is temporary, right?”

“What’s happened, happened. And I have faith,” Neil grits out, vodka thick on guarded teeth.

“In the world, or in him?”

Neil licks his lips. What a ridiculous question. “They’re the same.”

In India, He wakes the same time He always does: 4 A.M. on the dot, no matter the time zone or the jetlag. Neil forgets that they’re not this close yet, so he holds Him and kisses His shoulders, and He extracts himself from Neil with polite excuses.

Unbothered, Neil stares at the curve of His spine. In three years, an idealistic assassin will stab John a fraction of an inch from his lumbar, and Neil will spend an evening in a private hospital with murderous intentions and an investigative team.

Between John and the assassin, only one of them will survive the night.

Neil scrubs his hands over his face. Those memories are for another time and place, and he has to live in the present.

A bit.

One foot in, one foot out, a body moving forward while his mind searches backwards in flashes of case files, charts, and burner phones.

He comes out of the shower with a towel around His waist and stands at the edge of the mattress. Neil regards Him from where he lies, wide awake but clinging to the scent on the sheets. Neil lifts his eyebrows. “You’re going to tell me we can’t make this a habit.”

“I don’t normally do this on the job.”

This time, the information is true. Neil stretches and responds, “I know.” But he doesn’t vacate the bed, and He doesn’t ask him to while He swaps the hotel towel for another cheap suit. Neil is accustomed to tailored pants and jackets, but these are charming, too, attractive in their own right.

(“We always wear black. It’s too drab.”

“Neil.” John pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “For the last time, I’m not wearing a striped suit to our wedding.”

He wore a floral suit, instead.)

At 4:30 A.M., Neil goes back to his own room. He messages Ives and Mahir, he packs up his gear, he cleans like he’s committed murder. And he has, in a small way; Neil never existed here, and Neil is a dead man anyway. A young MI6 agent who passed the trainyard torture and the pill test and became a ghost story like the rest of the Tenets.

Neil isn’t shocked when Kat makes her appearance into their grand drama. She’s one of their oldest friends and Neil knows they save (saved) her life; she’ll talk about it during her toast at the wedding--close friends and colleagues only, and Neil will be unbelievably moved despite not having helped her yet.

Because John told him where to go, Neil’s waiting in the London hotel when He arrives, blood on His hands. Bruised knuckles and a lopsided grin when He notices Neil.

Holding up a suit bag, Neil remarks, “It looks like you could use a change of clothes.”

He drapes the bag over His arm. “I thought we weren’t gonna make this a habit.” 

Neil shrugs. They walk side-by-side into the lobby, and it’s high-end enough that no one inquires about the blood. If they notice, they won’t ask questions.

He isn’t hurt, but Neil pretends he could be. He insists he check Him over for hidden wounds; when they wind up in bed, Neil’s nails do more damage than those thugs at the restaurant ever could.

They collapse, sated, sweating on sheets with an obscenely high thread count. Neil arranges them so they sleep like they do at home, neither of their backs to the door. His breath is cool on Neil’s ear when He whispers, “I should be worried that you know how I like to sleep, right? This isn’t in my personnel file.” He shakes Neil a little. “At least I hope it isn’t.”

Neil intertwines their fingers, kisses His aching knuckles, and answers against those scrapes and bruises. “It pays to be in our profession.”

“Mm. You’ve used that line already”

“I’m observant.” And Neil is. He’s former MI6, after all, and a damn good Tenet.

He doesn’t press the issue.

Neil’s thinking about how well everything’s slotting into place, the memories and missing pieces, when it hits him.

John knew Neil would come here and be with Him. John knew they’d been together when he meets (met) Neil. Neil recalls their first kiss, (or what he thought was their first), how it seemed no one could kiss him better, how finding John was like reattaching a lost limb.

Neil isn’t giving John new memories because what’s happened between them has already happened. Neil’s filling in the gaps of his own understanding of their relationship. Cause and effect, effects becoming the cause: basic physics, inverted.

It takes all of Neil’s willpower and more not to confess all his love for Him that night, but he finds a better way in the morning with their room service order: Diet Coke and fried eggs.

His eyes narrow when Neil presents their breakfast.

Neil’s smile only gets wider as he echos, “I’m observant.”

“You’re a stalker,” He teases. He takes it in stride, though, and He eats the eggs. They discuss the forged Goya, and Neil asks the appropriate questions about Kat as if they don’t have her over for dinner every other weekend. It’s nearly impossible to reconcile these people, one so broken and afraid, and the other, the woman Neil knows, a paragon of freedom and fearlessness.

He tells Neil, “I’m going to do some recon on that drawing. If we can get to it, I think it could be our in with Sator.”

“Can I help?”

Shaking His head, He replies, “No. You’re close enough.”

“To you.”

“To this.” He shakes His head, amused. “I’m worried about how much you’ve seen.”

Neil sips his coffee to hide the beginnings of a grin. Around the cup, he purrs, “Darling, I didn’t know you cared.”

He glares halfheartedly and, an hour later, He leaves.

They meet back up in Oslo, Norway. “I have a proposition,” are the first words out of His mouth once they’re together. They’re on the street, pretending to window shop, but really they’re mapping the area.

Neil’s lips quirk upwards. “Thirty days to make or break a habit,” he cautions insincerely. His hands twitch toward Him; they usually walk arm in arm together, and it’s been difficult for Neil to keep that desire contained.

He smiles at Neil without looking at him and clarifies, “For a job. I didn’t want to risk involving you, but I can’t do it alone.”

Neil wants to ask if that’s the only reason He called, but he doesn’t. Instead Neil starts making arrangements. He contacts the freeport, arranges an interview, and requests an in-person tour of the facility.

Once there, Neil tells the manager, “I’ll have a guest with me when I return.”

“Certainly, sir. Another passenger?”

“My husband,” Neil answers reflexively. He turns away to bite his lip, particularly frustrated by these frequent blunders after he’s spent hours insisting to Ives that his personal history won’t compromise the pincer movement’s integrity.

Neil doesn’t tell Him about it, although he does tell Mahir. They’re in the hallway outside the hotel room. Mahir sighs but has the decency not to comment, because even he’s unsettled when the door opens and he has to introduce himself to a man he’s known for years.

Then, Neil recommends they crash a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft into the warehouse. “You’re not gonna like it,” Neil tells Him, because it’s true. The stunt is far more dramatic than He prefers, but He’ll also agree to do it because it’s just bold enough to be their best option.

Each day leading up to the mission, they go on runs together, they swim laps together, they practice breathing. They sleep in the same bed, dark purple sheets like the bottom of a lake, and Neil smothers His mouth, whispering, “Let’s see how long we can hold our breath.”

Neil wonders if He loves him yet, or if that will come later. It certainly feels like love already: the teasing, the concern for each other. During the freeport break-in, they fall into a rhythm Neil’s never had with anyone else. Unlock, run, search, repeat.

Angry beeps alert Neil that something’s amiss. He looks over at Him and His brows are furrowed, uncertain fingers floating above the keypad.

“Need a hand?”

“Actually... yes.”

Everything is new, but nothing has changed.

The turnstile, though, that’s unexpected. Neil acts as clueless as he can while he catches his breath, watching His expressions repeat in fragments across the splintered glass.

A _click, click, screech_ from the vault, and then two bodies are propelling out of its depths. Neil chases after one while He grapples with His. Gunshots sound from the room Neil’s just left; he suppresses all concern by focusing on the sharp, unpleasant slap of his shoes against the floor.

Neil recognizes Him before he’s even pulled the mask off. He’s winding up a punch when he watches the man in black defend himself just like he will whenever they spar (“Watch my hands, Neil, not my eyes.”). They stare at one another for a single, magnetic moment before Neil sprints away to stop Him from putting a bullet in His own head.

There’s not much to do after the hospital discharges them besides go to the hotel and make a pot of coffee. “Well, I’ve seen too much.” Neil pops the lid and pours. He’s overconfident, barely shaken, and can’t help but flirt a bit. “And I’m still alive, which means you’ve decided to trust me.”

A glance toward the rumpled sheets. “Or maybe I lost my edge.”

“Edge is still intact.” And it always will be. Neil’s a master of feigning ignorance about inversion after all, and He’s the one who will teach Neil that.

They share a laugh, which dissolves into a more violent intimacy as Neil admits how he’d prefer to die, given the chance, and He tells Neil He’ll make the decision, which leads to them staying in all afternoon talking. That’s all they do: talk. Neil pretends to learn about inversion, mentions his degree. But they share far more than that. Neil laces truth around the lies, the sweetest coating molded to the sourest taste. Stories are swapped about the best and worst times in the field. Neil recounts how he got the scar on his knee from an accident when he was young.

Two hands gently roll Neil’s pant leg up, then He kisses that scar. He tells Neil where He was born. Once the sun goes down, they lie chest-to-chest, talking until the words blur into noise into nothingness.

He’s gone in the morning, but He’s left a note, a simple set of coordinates. Neil memorizes them, burns them in the sink, leaves no trace they were ever there.

(They weren’t very materialistic, yet they bought a modest house in Alicante and filled it with tokens from their time together. John liked to keep a boat, and Neil collected clothes that wouldn’t be riddled with bullets every month. There were mugs in their cabinets, stupid mugs from tourist shops painted with cartoons and city names. John loved them. Neil loved that they belonged somewhere that wasn’t a battlefield.)

Ives orders Neil in for a debriefing and physical. Neil is technically Ives’ superior, but Ives is an old friend, and he glowers at Neil when he arrives at their rendezvous point, a secret basement in the Akershus Fortress. Neil simply smiles and lets the med team check his vitals.

Arms crossed, Ives growls, “You better not have told him anything.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “Relax. I was trained by the best, wasn’t I?”

“You were trained by your husband, asshole.” Gesturing vaguely to the outside world, Ives continues, “That guy isn’t your husband.”

“ _If_ I tell him anything,” Neil rounds on Ives and raises his voice, “then I’ve already told him, and nothing happens differently.”

Behind Ives’ shoulder, Wheeler imitates the man’s scowl with such precision that it sends Neil into hysterics and the doctor has to measure his pulse all over again.

And then, Neil waits. Soon, He will need Neil’s help to retrieve plutonium that isn’t plutonium, though Neil doesn’t have an exact date for the call.

Bored, and a little nervous, he reads the latest Physics journals, brushes up on his Estonian, plays poker with the Red Team--never Blue--and practices his suturing technique with the med unit because he has a sneaking suspicion the skill might be called upon in the next week.

Neil’s burner phone rings early enough that it’s still dark outside, and Neil slams it against his ear so hard it hurts.

“Tallinn.”

Neil scrambles off his cot and out of his room, feet carrying him down dark corridors. “Give me six hours.”

“You have five.”

So Neil’s banging on Ives’ door before the world’s even really alive, and Ives is already awake and lifting weights when Neil orders him to get a jet ready.

“How is it,” Ives complains, pouring water over his head, “that he’s the rookie, and you’re still taking orders like he’s the boss?”

“Habits,” Neil retorts happily.

He brings a small team with him, including Ives and Wheeler, people he can trust if--when--anything goes sideways.

And god dammit, it goes sideways. Despite all of Neil’s planning, Kat almost dies (She raised her glass. “To Neil and John, without whom I wouldn’t be standing today.”), He’s taken by Sator’s men, and Neil is forced to call in the cavalry after a shootout.

At the docks, Neil’s anger toward Sator’s lackeys freezes over into a cool, calculated rage. He waits for his team to clear the room. Then, Neil goes to Him, expecting a nod and thanks and _We made it._

Neil’s choking, his back flat against the wall, before he’s fully aware He’s attacked. He struggles against Him, begging for understanding. “Please,” Neil gasps, “ _ours._ ”

But He hasn’t even been inverted yet, so how could He believe Neil, or even feel any ownership over this world, this team? Neil relents, then, all too aware he doesn’t have any of the answers He wants. Neil can’t explain why he knows so much about Him, can’t explain the Opera House or the Diet Coke or the remarkably simple intimacy they’ve slipped briskly into.

It’s Ives who steps in, speaking soothingly, giving more away than Neil expected. He releases Neil, and although He doesn’t apologize, His hands shake and He can’t meet Neil’s eyes. Neil’s rattled, too; they’ve never fought like this, because they’ve always trusted each other.

Neil realizes he’s nauseous. Disoriented, he focuses all his attention on Kat’s wound, and gets a raging headache while he’s at it, but at least she makes it through the turnstile alive and He adjusts to the inversion well enough.

Then it’s cowboy shit and His first time in an inverted world. Because Neil has to send him off with a transponder and a quick brush of their hands instead of a kiss, Neil busies himself finding a shipping container to Oslo. He guts it and refurbishes it with beds, medical equipment, clothes, food, and weapons.

As soon as his hands become idle, Neil walks through their newly acquired turnstile, puts on a suit and a mask, and drives out to find Him, because His life isn’t worth leaving to chance.

He gets to that familiar stretch of freeway just as the flames reach HIs car. Inside the vehicle, the temperature plummets; Neil slams on the brakes while ice crystallizes on the glass, thick slates of white hiding all traces of the man inside. Neil swallows, braces himself, and shatters the passenger window with his elbow. His breath is visible as he crawls amongst the flames.

Neil cuts His seatbelt. He’s unconscious, but He managed to pull His oxygen mask on after the crash. Neil’s pulse steadies after that, and he and Ives pry open the windshield to pull Him through. They speed back to the docks, Ives complaining about their heroics and driving like a maniac and Neil holding Him in the backseat.

All warmth has fled from His skin. Touching Him, Neil thinks, is like touching a statue that’s been in the wind too long--so cold it burns. His chest rises and falls weakly while Neil holds Him with all the strength he possesses. “I have faith,” Neil affirms.

Ives’ eyes meet Neil’s in the mirror. “In the world, or in him?”

Neil blinks. “They’re the same.”

Three people walk into a shipping container. It’s the start of a bad joke, Neil muses, especially since two of them are asleep and rolled in with IVs. Neil alternates between one bedside and the other, hardly ever shutting his own eyes.

Kat’s the first to wake. Tears gather on her lashes, but they don’t fall. Neil holds her hand and shows her the bandages on her stomach, asks her to rest, to heal. An hour later, He’s flailing out of his mylar cocoon.

He and Kat want the bigger picture, so Neil provides.

“End of play,” he concludes after the brief lesson on history and entropy, thinking--

_All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; / They have their exits and their entrances; / And one man in his time plays many parts..._

He isn’t as thrilled by Neil’s cleverness in that moment like He will be on missions in their future. Groaning, He asks for precision, and Neil complies.

The stakes are high, no matter how nicely Neil spins them. It’s his defense mechanism, though, a pretty quote to cover up what he really wants to say, which is, in this case, _I can’t lose you._ Because He gave up the algorithm and He’s still grasping at half-truths, and because Neil finds the whole thing unbearably unfair, they fight while Kat is healing. Neil slips up again, says, “When this is over, and if we’re still standing, and you still care, then you can hear my life story, okay?”

Neil allows Him His space. Neil sleeps. Alone. The first two nights, He either stays awake or lies in his own cot. By the third night, after Neil explains the Grandfather Paradox, Neil feels arms around his chest, a chin tucked into his neck. Neil opens his mouth to speak, but he’s hushed.

“Let’s get some sleep,” He mutters. “I have some catching up to do.”

Neil smiles. If only He knew.

A shipping mishap complicates their revisit to Oslo. Neil peeks through a keyhole at the fire and the scattered gold bars against cracked tarmac. A few feet away, He’s loading his gun, and when He lifts his arm, He cries out. They knew about the injury before, but now it’s much worse.

“How’s your arm?” Neil asks.

“Not good.” He hides the blossoming red mark under His suit, then grabs His mask, wincing with each movement.

Neil’s stomach twists. Blood splatters the floor, Pollock on a plastic tarp. “Hold on,” he urges. “You’re bleeding. Let me take a look at you.”

Glancing between the droplets, the door, Neil, and Kat, He holds His arm out. Neil slides his fingers gently up His wrist to His forearm to His bicep. But there isn’t enough time.

Kat lives, Neil drives, and He learns. When Neil calls this operation “ours,” he’s letting Him closer and closer to the truth. They shake hands--job well done--and then Neil’s go back to the wheel, but He rests His on Neil’s thigh.

Night dissolves into a lavender dawn. They’re near the docks, but Neil isn’t ready to give this up yet; he swerves off an exit and parks. They open the back of the ambulance to sit, supporting Kat between them while they all watch the sunrise.

It doesn’t feel exactly like goodbye, but it’s close.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Neil knows their inverted time on the Magne Viking is part of the story John wouldn't tell. Neil gives Him and Kat the safety tour, and it feels like when they brought her and Max to Alicante. Plastic sheets because they were painting, a view of the water. Neil’s struck that this three-person nostalgia can belong only to him, and they’ll never be back here like this.

Because he’s unsure if he’ll ever be able to tell Him again, Neil holds Him close--tight, maybe too tight, all bony elbows and white knuckles--at night and whispers, “I love you.”

“Uh.” He pulls away a little. “I don’t know what to say.”

Neil twists in His arms so they can face each other. “You don’t have to say anything. I just needed you to know.”

He grabs Neil’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, then kisses him, tender like Neil might break, which he _will,_ he _does,_ he falls apart in His arms. Because Neil is exhausted, and--why should he not admit it?--he’s scared.

They sail back, and back, and back.

Once they’ve picked a day to return to--June 14, and Neil’s dizzy from the overlapping significance of that summer day--, He goes to the deck. Neil follows.

“It’s beautiful out here.” His voice is low, distorted by the oxygen mask and the heavy waves.

Neil rests his elbows on the railing. “Each time I see it, I think I’ll be used to it, or the novelty will wear off.”

“It won’t.”

“No,” Neil agrees, leaning his head on His shoulder. “It won’t.”

At the end:

Time isn’t the problem. It’s getting out alive that’s the problem.

Standing amongst the dust and debris and detritus, He shouts, “Neil, wait!”

Neil whispers, “Now let me go,” and Neil says goodbye, kissing Him while He heaves out sob after sob,

(“You know, I almost didn’t recruit you,” John admitted once.

They were out in the field. A sunny day in London, a crashed double-decker that was no longer bits of scrap metal. The red paint shone beautifully against a clear blue sky.

“Why?” Neil asked, squeezing John’s waist, “Did you see my picture and worry you’d fall madly in love with me?”

John kissed Neil’s head and murmured, “Something like that.”)

and Neil modifies _Casablanca_ because it’s John’s favorite film, and He doesn’t know it yet, but Neil will constantly misquote it by one word to rile John.

(“Of all the burger joints in all the world--”

“Gin joints! Gin! Neil, darling,” John practically sings, twirling Neil around their kitchen to the tune of ‘As Time Goes By’, “I have a gun.”)

“But can we change things if we do it different?”

What’s happened, happened. Neil goes through a turnstile for the third time that day.

Neil goes underground, heart pounding.

Neil thinks--

_Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will get shot in the head to stop it. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you're getting shot in the head thinking, "I am getting shot in the head," but there's an element of the ridiculous to it--you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor dying you look at the place where the ground meets the door and you realize it wasn’t all that difficult to unlock._

Neil dies.

(They met on a boat bound for Tokyo: Neil’s first mission for Tenet. John gave him the codeword and connections. He looked at Neil in a way that made Neil feel that no one in his life had ever looked at him directly before. Afterwards, they had dinner. Neil hadn’t even ordered his first drink when John told him, “I like to get to know all the new recruits.”

Grinning, Neil shot back, “No, you don’t.”

John’s eyes flickered as his mind drifted far away. Ever dignified, however, he returned in the next instant. He laughed. “What makes you say that? You don’t know me.”

Ever brave, Neil replied, “I want to, though.”

Both of their hands were below their small, circular table, and then they weren’t. John’s gaze was more hesitant than Neil expected, but his fingers were confident as they drummed across Neil’s pulse-point.

“You first, then,” John insisted. “I want to hear your life story.”

Neil leaned forward. “Where should I start?”

“At the beginning.”)

**Author's Note:**

> The large chunk of poetry at the end is my own reconstruction of a quote by Richard Siken. William Shakespeare’s works are used twice; the play Neil references is Twelfth Night’ and the “All the world’s a stage” line is from ‘As You Like It’. Scattered throughout are musical and literary references, most notably from ‘Youth’ by Daughter, ‘No Better’ by Lorde, ‘Corpse Song’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘Giovanni’s Room’ by James Baldwin, and ‘The Song of Achilles’ by Madeline Miller. If you find any more that I haven’t cited, it’s because my subconscious used them without consulting me.
> 
> If you have fic requests/prompts, or just want to message me to talk about this fic, the film, and anything else, find me @ithappensoffstage on tumblr and @JasEdwards13 on twitter!


End file.
